"Before I left home I cut my hair close to my scalp so I could be a free woman with free thoughts, open to all possibilities... I didn’t know what I wanted to be but I knew I wanted to be the kind of woman who was bold, took chances and had adventures."

So as promised like five hundred years ago, I have to tell you all about my somewhat random decision to come to Mexico and my experience thus far. It has officially been 18 days since I've arrived...

Why did I decide to study español? Because I'll be working in DC and there is a 99.99% chance that I will meet more Spanish speakers on an average day than a French speaker. As much as that slightly sucks (because I love French soo much, not because Spanish speakers suck lol) I always wanted to pick up Spanish anyway. I figured it would be a great excuse to travel and enjoy these last few free months of my life before I start working in July!

Why Mexico? I have a friend that I studied in France with who is Mexican and when I told her that I was interested in learning Spanish she told me to come to her town since there are lots of great schools to learn the language. So I thought GREAT!

Where am I? Cuernavaca (red dot below) is the capital of the state of Merelos. It's about an hour and a half away from Mexico City. Interesting fact: There are 32 states in Mexico in addition to the federal district of Mexico City.... sound like the set up for any country you know?Cuernavaca is known as the "City of Eternal Spring" because of it's spring-like weather 256 days a year. Seriously, the weather is absolute perfection. The sun is always shining and the cool breeze is always blowing. As a matter of fact, the sun was only missing one day so far and that's because there is a tropical storm approaching the gulf.

Ok, so moving on...I'm having a great time here! I'm going to a school called Chac-Mool. It's a gorgeous place (pictured above) that has a very fun and relaxing learning environment. The geek in me absolutely loves school but this place is fantastic for all types of people and all ages. The only rule we have is no speaking English which was reallllly hard for the first few days. Now I've had two weeks of classes and I'm already able to express myself in Spanish. My grammar is pretty bad and I'm very slow to respond / lost for words sometimes but I would say it's still pretty impressive for someone who has only had a severely limited knowledge of the Spanish language prior to arriving!

relaxing poolside in Acapulco with my current read

Anywho, since being here I've visited a very popular and pretty nearby town, found some great places to eat, moved three different times, learned how to take the bus, gained experience haggling over the price with taxi drivers, gone clubbing, gotten some salsa lessons, bought some really great bootleg DVDs for $1.50 (that play in English, Spanish, or French), enjoyed quite a few margaritas, spent a weekend relaxing on the beach in Acapulco, and more...

Needless to say, I'm sad that I only have like two weeks left. June 23rd I return to hot/sticky/humid DC. Oh well. While I try to get over it enjoy the pics!

If you have problems seeing the slide show, click on "fullscreen"

And if your looking for me I'll be studying these *gosh*darn* irregular verbs! They kill me every time.